As I was having my morning coffee and surfing the web I stumbled across something that made me laugh like I haven’t done in a while. There was the picture of a T-shirt and on it was written 'I’m a programar' (the spelling was wrong on purpose) and crossed off, under that: 'I am a programour'; this was crossed off too, and so on. After three tries came the punch-line that was also the submission: 'I write code'.

The reason this was so funny to me is that I know people that fit the description, that are part of another world, where spelling mistakes are called syntax errors.

The demands of developers and programmers in the field of text editing are greater than the average computer user, but IDM Computer found a way to bring the two worlds together by offering a feature-rich HTML/text/hex editor: UltraEdit-32.

When you open the application for the first time in a window, with three categories of file extensions,it appears to allow you to associate different file types with UltraEdit. The categories are: All General (.txt, .ini, .log, .dat, .bin, .hex files), All Programming (.c, .cpp, .h, .hpp, .mak, .prj files), All Web Developer (.html, .htm, .java, .js, .xml, .css files).

From only this first window you can see how versatile UltraEdit is. Now that the ‘what’ is established, comes the ‘how much?’. The answer is quite a lot. Files in excess of 4GB can be handled with minimum RAM used.

UltraEdit has a user-friendly interface. It offers a tree structure on the left, that shows you the files that are open at the moment, and lets you browse your hard disk partitions, CD's or FTP accounts to open a file. On the top there is a menu that gives you access to all important options and actions.

UltraEdit is a plain text editor, a HEX editor, and a programming editor, all rolled into one. It’s powerful Find and Replace function allows you to make changes to multiple documents and directories and the Undo function is very powerful, letting you undo things that you’ve done wrong far back in the document.

You can concentrate on more important things while writing your code because the application has a spell checking function in nine languages (American English, British English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish).

Concerning programming, the feature that I find most useful and powerful is the program’s capability to color your code. Not only does it recognize what language you are typing in and highlights functions, variables, comments, key-words, expressions and many others, but it also allows you to configure it for any file extension you want. Now, finding errors will be a breeze and editing is done much easier.

You can organize your files by project and easily keep track of various resource files and output files. You also have the option of comparing two files side by side, with differences being highlighted. The program’s features also include menu tabs that help with the maintenance of large groups of documents, switching fast between open documents, projects and workspaces.

Besides all the features presented, the list doesn’t stop here, Ultra edit is a complex program and in order to find just the right features for your needs you will just have to try it.

The Good

UltraEdit is packed with a lot of useful features for all kinds of users, from the ones that just want a simple text editor to the programmers and developers that need a powerful text editing tool.

The Bad

The only downside I could think of is the price that is kind of high for this sort of application, but, of course, this is a relative matter.

The Truth

There are a lot of text editing programs out there but I like this best because of its simple interface and all the wonderful features and functions it offers.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: